[HECnet] DECnet et al

[Kari Uusim ki]

On 17.7.2011 23:17, Paul Koning wrote:

On Jul 17, 2011, at 2:29 PM,<hvlems at zonnet.nl>   wrote:

What is the difference between a bridge and a switch? I don't want to get into a discussion about layer 2 and layer 3 swutching but afaik a bridge is a two port layer 2 switch.

No.   "bridge" is the original term, and while the first bridges were 2 port, that never was a limitation.

"Switch" is a term invented by some company whose name escapes me (bought by Cisco way back when) for the purpose of confusing the public into thinking they had something different.   Not so, it was just a bridge.

These days "switch" seems to be the common term, but the two words have always been synonyms.

	paul


.


Paul answered already what I also was going to say; that bridge was the orginal term.

In fact, a switch is a multiport bridge. A switch can of course have additional features like VLAN support etc but basically it is a bridge with all ports connected together.

Kari